Graduate Student Scholarly Activities; Gender and Perceived Program Support.

A segment of the socialization process of graduate students seeking advanced degrees in education is explored in order to discover how the students are socialized to the norm of cognitive rationality. The correlates of graduate student participation in certain scholarly activities with the students' perceptions of their academic program are investigated along three dimensions: support for scholarship, curriculum, and faculty encouragement. The mediating effects of gender, race, area of concentration, and level of graduate study on such scholarly participation by graduate students are discussed. Data for the research came from a survey of recent graduates (N=738) from a school of education in a state-funded, regional, research university. The survey's goal was the assessment of students' satisfaction with several dimensions of their student experiences. Results indicate women are apparently disadvantaged in comparison to their male counterparts when it comes to participation in scholarly activities as graduate students, even in the field of education where there are plenty of opportunities for women to earn the doctorate. Contains 17 references. (SM)